Mobile data communications is evolving quickly because of global communications network such as the Internet, intranets, laptops, PDAs (personal digital assistants) and increased requirements of workforce mobility. Third generation mobile system (3G) technologies (e.g., UMTS-Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) are considered enhancements to GSM (Global System for Mobile telecommunications) cellular standards.
New technologies are required to deliver high speed location and mobile terminal specific content to users. The emergence of new technologies thus provides an opportunity for a boom similar to what the computer industry had in 1980's, and that Internet and wireless voice had in 1990's.
UMTS can be considered to be the commercial convergence of fixed line telephony, mobile, Internet and computer technology. The UMTS transport network is preferred when handling high data traffic. Conventionally, a spectrum is cleared for various technologies on a marketwide basis. For GSM and TDMA (time division multiple access) technologies which require re-use plans, the channel bandwidth is relatively small, 200 and 30 KHz respectively, thus wasting 200 or 30 KHz of spectrum is not problematic. However, the UMTS carrier is 5 MHz wide so clearing such a large amount of spectrum on a marketwide basis when many UMTS sites do not yet need additional carrier capacity wastes precious spectrum.